


From What I've Tasted

by Rubynye



Series: Fire And Ice [6]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, Genderswap, M/M, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One particular day in the life of Dr. Leah McCoy, CMO of the ISS <i>Enterprise</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From What I've Tasted

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Kittyjimjams, Echoinautumn and Asimaiyat . Prequel to "In The Gleam of Eyes" and "Had To Perish Twice".

**0545**

Leah wakes up fifteen minutes early, from no particular dream, peaceful and alone. Joanna yawns in the next room, muttering and burbling her way to alertness, and Leah listens gratefully to her daughter's contentment as she reaches out to reset her alarm.

Her smile twists and fades as she considers the day before her. One of her first cases will probably be fixing Riley up; last night Kirk curled a hand around the kid's nape and hauled him off, while Chekov watched smirking and Kyle glared at the opposite bulkhead. Leah knows she's being ridiculous, but as she stretches her arms and legs out in her own, unshared bed, she feels guilty. At least she's... used to Kirk, unlike Riley, as much as anyone alive can be said to be. As everyone watched or ostentatiously not-watched Kirk drag away his latest conquest, that idiot Moreau glanced at Leah from under long thickened lashes, probably hoping to spot a flash of jealousy, but all Leah felt was exhausted, guilty relief.

Last night, she'd been so goddamn tired.

Not just last night, she thinks as she arches her spine into the stretch, the bite throbbing under her ear and all the old bruises twinging, a day closer to the asymptote of recovery. This ship full of vicious children makes her tired. Not that she's even that much older than most of them, but she's old enough, watching all their infighting and scuffling for position in a 'Fleet that'll likely see them all dead soon anyway, watching them waste the efforts of her Medical staff who'll probably just end up being dragged along down to Hell.

As long as Joanna survives them all, and just as Leah thinks that she hears her daughter's soft giggling and shifting around, and her chest unknots. Joanna sounds like this when she's plotting something, and her tenth birthday was five days ago, so Leah smiles and rolls onto her side, tugging her nightshirt sleeves over her bruise-smudged wrists and then tucking her hands beneath her head in a cheerful imitation of sleep.

Another moment or three, and Joanna bounds into Leah's room, shouting, "Lights! Surprise!" Leah opens her eyes, smiling for her daughter --

\--and sees Joanna in a pixie version of that ridiculous female uniform, blue bandeau and tiny skirt and too damn much flesh bared to cool air and predatory eyes. "What the Hell are you wearing?"

Joanna's mouth rounds, her eyes flaring with shock. "Momma, it's a--"

"I know what it is!" Leah sits up, halfway to standing. "Go put some decent clothes on!"

Joanna doesn't budge. "But Captain Jim --"

Leah should've fucking known, she thinks, biting her lip hard against cursing aloud. " _He_ gave this to you? Of course--"

"No, he gave me a requisition chip!" Joanna waves her naked arms, belly-button winking as her back curves, and she looks like Palamas cursing at Chekov for smacking her ass, like Uhura exclaiming over the asinine uselessness of men, like every half-naked woman on this goddamn amoral ship. "He told me to pick out something you'd like, don't you like it?"

Leah opens her mouth to shout that _Captain Jim_ would have no damn idea at all what she'd like, that what she'd like would be to get her only daughter out of this depraved pit of vipers calling itself a starship, that she's worked too hard to keep Joanna safe to let her dress like a slut. Then she shuts it hard, slamming her teeth together, because she realizes what she's about to shriek at her daughter is, _No I_ don't _like seeing you look like a whore!_ and she can't say that, not to Joanna, who's already staring at her with wide wet eyes.

Leah squeezes hers shut, snarls, "God _dammit_ , Jojo," punches the wall beside her, and bursts into tears.

"Momma?" And now Joanna's crying too, and Leah's crying too hard to help her. She peels one hand away from her face, and Joanna slides in under her arm, sobbing into her shoulder as Leah strokes her hair.

Joanna cries longer than Leah does, huge hysterical whoops that eventually settle to hiccups. Leah rubs her fine-skinned back, bared by the skimpy useless strip of cloth posing as a top, until the spasms even out enough to let Joanna lift her head. "I'm sorry, Momma," Joanna murmurs, contrite and confused, soft words slicing like a dagger right into Leah's chest.

"It's okay, Baby," she mutters, and kisses the top of Joanna's head. "It's okay. Just go get changed." Joanna peels from her side, sniffling and smudging away tears, and silently plods away. Leah hates herself for the defeated line of her daughter's naked back, and covers her face with both hands for another moment, her lungs shuddering towards more sobs. Then, because she has to, instead of pulling her sheets back over her head and sinking into another crying fit, Leah makes herself get up.

 **0623**

Joanna is subdued all the way to the mess, but then so is Leah. When they arrive she spots another child, a curly little boy beside a weary-looking woman in red who's probably his mother, and runs off, braids flying. As the kid looks up with a huge gappy grin, his mother glances at Leah, and the lopsided half-smiles they exchange don't really add up to a full one.

Leah collects some goopy yogurt and mulchlike cereal and sits in a corner where Joanna can find her but more troublesome sorts would need to put effort into bothering her. Kyle's not far away, glaring silently at his breakfast, no Riley in sight; Leah shakes her head at her own foolishness and makes herself eat, bite after bite sinking into her stomach.

When Kirk arrives she doesn't look up immediately, though she can hear him, loud and bluff and hearty, slapping backs and basking in titters. Instead she looks for Joanna, moving only her eyes; when she sees her daughter laughing she bites her lip against what she knows she needs to do, then waves once, sharply, to catch Joanna's attention.

Joanna doesn't test her today. She obediently heads across the mess, and if Leah didn't know better she'd think Kirk missed that movement, his view blocked by a simpering ensign who's standing so close he must be able to feel her breathing. Leah does know better, though, so she just asks, "You eaten, Jojo?" as if her own belly isn't tight and queasy, and makes herself swallow another spoonful of mulch and goop as Joanna obediently nods.

Meanwhile Kirk detatches himself from the forward ensign and strides over to Leah, who takes Joanna's hand in hers as she pushes herself to her feet. "Doctor," he says, all sparkling eyes and indulgent respect. "Hey, Jojo." Leah nods to him, working up a smile, until he adds, "Kid, you're out of uniform," and the smile sinks into oblivion as Leah's heart plummets.

Joanna's eyes are huge, stormy hazel, flicking back and forth between them. "I, uh."

"We can discuss this later, Captain," Leah asks, to turn Kirk's eyes back to her. "Please, Sir," because she means it.

Kirk looks at her sideways, still facing Joanna. He reaches towards her wrist, and Leah doesn't hold her hand out, doesn't pull away as he curls his hard fingers around it, pushing the sleeve back so he touches nothing but her prickling skin. He nods, but he's lifting her hand, and Leah still can't breathe as Kirk raises her wrist to his lips, pressing her pulse to his mouth. She should be grateful for the public reaffirmation of her status. She can feel the hardness of his teeth.

Then he lets go, she does jerk her hand back, and his broad smirk unfurls below his glittering blue eyes. "Sure, Bones," he says, and pats Joanna's head. "Stay good, kiddo. I like the braids."

With that, Kirk moves on, leaving half the gazes in the mess trained on Leah like laser beams. She makes herself breathe the way she made herself eat, pulling air into her rigid lungs, and sits down again.

 

 **0848**

The morning is routine, at least. No new patients overnight, for a wonder, and no one's deteriorated. Leah pauses by Lt. Chitalen's biobed and watches her nerve-damaged tremors for a little while, wishing she could give her something for the pain, but it was a minor miracle to get Kirk's permission to even treat the poor girl after he let her out of that Booth, and Leah's trying to learn when not to push. Chitalen opens tilted, bloodshot eyes and grimaces, or maybe tries to smile, and Leah bites the inside of her cheek and smiles back.

After rounds she settles into her office to do the morning reports, idly wondering why one particular patient hasn't shown up. When she sits down her elbow catches on a clear sticky spot, and she grimaces and reaches up for a wipe to scrub it away, unwillingly remembering how Kirk bent her over her own desk yesterday afternoon. Maybe after that he went easy on Riley, Leah wonders, before snorting and setting up the forms on her padd. It's not like it matters either way.

After the third report, Leah pauses and keys in this week's combination to open her bottom desk drawer. She keeps a hypospray there that she fills herself, and every morning she checks it by eye and with a tricorder. Only then does she dial up her daily contraceptive and inject herself. It's possible, if unlikely, that someone would sabotage it to poison her; there are many people stupid enough to want to be CMO of the _Enterprise_ , but she doesn't know of any currently aboard. There are a few aboard stupid enough to want to be Kirk's Woman, but Leah has some defenses against those.

The best one knocks on the door of her office. Leah opens it and Chapel holds out her arm, giving Leah a calm glance that's about as close as she ever gets to a smile. Leah nods in response as she adjusts the dosage slightly and injects Chapel, who unfortunately reacts badly to the standard contraceptive implant. Leah doesn't, but when she asked Kirk to let her have one he laughed the first time, responded to the second request with an improbable and terrifying fantasy of the child they could have, and interrupted the third with a slap hard enough to bruise half her face, so that she had to lie to Joanna that she fell down. After that Leah stopped asking.

Chapel glances back over her shoulder as the Sickbay doors hiss open, then inclines her head towards Leah. "Lieutenant Riley," she reports, voice coolly impassive.

Leah sighs. "Get him settled for me. I'll do the regen after this last report." Chapel's eyebrow rises in a silky blonde arch, and Leah explains, "I know... how far to go with it. I'll be there in a minute." Chapel nods, and Leah picks up her padd and types as fast as possible. She owes this much to the kid, after all.

When she leaves her office, tricorder in hand, Chapel waves her towards the biobed at the end of the doorward row. Leah steps around the privacy screen and finds Riley seated on the bed, shirts off and hands dangling between his knees, blotchy red bruises scattered over waxy-pale skin from his set jaw to his hunched shoulders. He turns his head just enough to look at Leah, and she sucks in a breath at the purple shiner around his eye. The tricorder tells her his head's otherwise fine, nothing cracked or torn or bleeding, so as she scans his neck and chest she asks, "How're you doing there, sitting? You can lie down if you need to."

"I'm all right, Dr. McCoy." He shrugs, and she watches carefully to catch any suppressed wince. "He used lube."

"Well, good for him for that," Leah says, letting sarcasm flood her voice, and Riley's mouth twists in what passes for a smile on this goddamn ship. "If you need, though, I can fix it." Riley shakes his head. He's got bitemarks over his scapulae but nothing bad enough for an excuse to use a regenerator, and his ribs are sound. Leah sighs, scanning Riley's nose and orbit once more to make sure, before logging the readings and setting the tricorder down. "Want an analgesic before you go?" she offers.

Riley sucks in a surprised breath and scowls at her, and she feels just leaden, so damn tired. "Excuse me, but I've got half a hundred sodding bruises here."

Leah's eyes feel almost too heavy to roll. "I'd never have noticed if you hadn't mentioned." She decides to go for a hypo on the shelf above the bed, letting her sleeve slip back as she reaches up; Riley follows her movement, opening his mouth to argue, and it stays open as her wrist emerges, banded with brown and yellow fingermarks. Leah raises her chin as if she needs to look at the shelf, and if Riley has half a brain he'll notice the livid bite under her ear. Kirk gave her that one yesterday afternoon, and it's still sore.

Riley notices, and his mouth gapes open wider, then shuts into a thin line. Leah pulls down an appropriately loaded hypo and adjusts the dose for his body mass. Eventually, his voice softened and raspy, he asks, "At least fix my eye? Please?"

Leah shakes her head. "Sorry, Lieutenant, but a shiner that obvious... I wish I could." Riley drops his chin, looking down at his hands, and doesn't flinch when Leah injects him. She looks at her hands, thinking of the ever-renewed assortment of bruises on her arms and hips, of the oath she took such a long time ago, and juggles the hypo between hands so she can give Riley's shoulder one firm pat. "I'm sorry, kid," she murmurs, trying not to imagine Kirk making Riley writhe or to remember the searing pinch of his fingers and teeth on her own skin. Trying, and failing.

Riley looks up at her, smiling on both sides of his mouth, if not in his brown eyes. "At least we've got long sleeves," he says, sliding off the bed. "Thanks, Doctor."

"You're welcome, Lieutenant," Leah says as Riley pulls on his shirts. Then he abruptly turns and salutes her, and she blinks in surprise as she watches him go.

 

 **1141**

When Leah follows movement on the edge of her vision and finds M'Benga standing in her doorway, her heart leaps into her throat, her cheeks going clammy as the blood drains from her face. He backs up a step, shaking his head just a little, his eyes warm and unworried, and hot blood rushes into her cheeks; tossing her head back because her neck wants to droop, she mutters, "Gave me a fright, Dr. M'Benga," because he's one of the few aboard who won't take those words as the wrong sort of encouragement. "What is it now?"

"Just cold sandwiches and conversation, Dr. McCoy," he says with an inviting sweep of his arm, and she has to half-smile at that. "And inventory, of course."

Leah tucks a palm-sized device into her pocket, a favor from Lt. Gaila in Engineering, and she and M'Benga head off to the storage bays, chatting innocuously about Sickbay rates, numbers and resources as they make their way through the ship. It's not until they've reached Bay 18-D and she's plugged the little device into her tricorder that they can start their real conversation.

She makes herself scan the room like a patient, resetting the field of depth to cover each subsequent layer of supplies in pallets and wrapped machinery, while M'Benga lays a disposable sheet over a box and sets out their sandwiches and drink packs in an approximation of civilization. Finding no listening devices, video recorders or other bugs, Leah decouples the device, puts it away, and smiles honestly as she sits across from him beside the box. "I knew there's a reason I enjoy working with you."

"I thought it was because I've never tried to kill you." Right here, right now, hidden in an unmonitored bay, it's true enough and funny enough, and laughing feels much more wholesome and nourishing than this cottony psudo-fish-salad sandwich tastes.

"Think we can keep the streak going?" The _Enterprise_ 's Medical corps is known for being far less murderous than any other division on the ship, or the other Medical departments among the heavy warships. Fortunately they're also known for having significantly lower mortality and morbidity than any other Imperial warships, so Kirk allows Leah her efforts to search out staff she can trust not to carve patients up for fun or kill each other for promotions. "The Captain's given me permission to take on another doctor, up to two nurses and three MA's. I have some preliminary files for you and Chapel to scan through before we start setting up interviews."

M'Benga looks down thoughtfully for a moment. "Are those six all we're allotted, or can we also recruit replacements?" he asks, eyes still hooded, and Leah inhales to answer, then stops and thinks. Their projected return to Earth is three months away, and for all of M'Benga's skill and pleasantry she's never known just how he ended up out here, like her, a gentle person tending killers.

She swallows and charges forward with her thought. "We can look for necessary replacements, he said, though you know how mercurial he can be." M'Benga shrugs a nod, gaze flickering up before he drops them again to examine his drink, trying to hide the pity Leah knows fills his eyes. "Do I need to find a second new doctor? I'll want your opinion on any exomedical specialists."

He shakes his head and looks at her then, a wistful smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "And leave the glorious service of the Imperial fleet?" makes her mouth twist in wry sympathy. "I received a wedding invitation recently," he continues, and the quiet shift of his tone makes Leah put down her sandwich and concentrate. "I chose to study Vulcan medicine because... the Terran Empire has conquered so many worlds, drained their resources and subjugated their peoples. We were taught as children about Terran exceptionalism, how adaptable and tough we are, how we deserve to rule... but back when Terrans lived in little kingdoms perpetually at war with the people over the next hill, the Vulcans were taking their first steps into space. I think we have more to learn from other planets than we're willing to admit."

Leah's mouth has gone dry, her heart thumping as she wonders why M'Benga is trusting her with his treasonous thoughts. "You sure you want to be telling me this?" she asks carefully, glancing at the tricorder to make sure no one's nearby, thinking about the exact location of the hypo of sedative in her sleeve just in case.

He smiles a little wider, a little more sadly. "Who else on this ship would understand, Dr. McCoy?" He doesn't look like a crazy man, his eyes dark and clear. "So that's why I went to Vulcan. I met another Terran there, a translator who... shared some of my thoughts, a student under Lady Amanda Grayson, no less." M'Benga barks a humorless laugh, and Leah nods, still listening. "We decided to get married, came back to Earth, and started obtaining the necessary permissions to work with the Vulcan community. Then a Fleet officer dropped by to speak to me in person." Leah's breath catches, and as M'Benga tells her, she murmurs, "Captain Pike," in soundless unison. "He told me he _thought_ \--" that dry sharp laugh again -- "that exomedical specialists belong in the Imperial service, and that I had such a handsome boyfriend. He gave me the night to think it over."

Leah wants to say how sorry she is for the painful choice she can already see he made. She wants to snarl at the unfair, backhanded, diabolical techniques of the Imperial Fleet. She wants to tell M'Benga that he was smarter than she was when she walked voluntarily into their clutches and didn't understand until too late what she'd given herself to. "Oh, Jesus," she mutters, an inadequate archaicism, and M'Benga nods and continues.

"Not that there was really a decision," he exhales on a gusty sigh. "I thought of running away with him, changing our names and faces, contacts who could help us disappear... but when he came home that night I looked him in the eye, and I told him I was going to the Fleet." He's looking into the distance now, that thousand-meter stare of memory she's seen on so many faces as they tonelessly tell her the stories of their traumas. "I told him why. He understood. So I have no real reason to go back to Earth, not now."

Leah spends a moment considering if she should risk two nonclinical touches in one day, but if it's not safe here she might as well give up. She reaches across the box and pats his hand, once, quickly, as she says, "I'm sorry," and it feels like the barest measure of human sympathy and an incredible indulgence all at once.

M'Benga smiles, nodding acknowledgement, and doesn't return the pat. Some warnings are just too ingrained. "I'm not. He's safe, and I serve the Empire," he says in his best reassuring-doctor voice. Leah has one too, though scoldings tend to be more effective for the patients she has out here. "I don't regret my decision."

By the last word his face is professionally bland again. Frustratingly bland, and something sparks inside Leah's chest. "Maybe he would've appreciated getting to decide for himself?" M'Benga doesn't answer, and she keeps going, "I mean, dammit, man, now he's getting married and it's torn you up enough to tell me all of this, you've got to miss him."

By now almost anyone else of their rank would be brandishing a fist or blade or Agonizer, almost anyone under Leah's authority would glare as they plotted how to hurt her without getting caught. But M'Benga gives her that calm look she's seen him give Kirk and Sulu and Pike... and maybe now she knows something about what he keeps behind it, Leah thinks, her anger deflating on an exhale. He shrugs, and says as frankly as a diagnosis, "I'd miss him much more if he were dead. That's why I left him behind."

Leah thinks inescapably of Joanna and the chip she carried in her arm for almost five years, of the times when Kirk flourished the threat of detonating it, of when she worked frantically to save him knowing her baby girl's life hung in the balance with his. She thinks of all the times she wanted even one person to share that burden with, but she never dared tell anyone the way M'Benga's dared tell her this now. "Not everybody can be left behind," she says, but without any heat, and rubs her hand over her mouth before she can continue, "but, damn, that's hard. I am sorry. Geoff, I'm sorry."

"I know, Leah," he says, and stands up, gathering the sheet up with the remnants of their lunch. "We should be seen again soon. Mess or Sickbay?"

"You take the Mess, I'm not hungry." Leah picks up her tricorder as she stands, turning towards the door, when she startles at the lightest touch on her shoulder.

She looks up, and M'Benga's unsmiling but serene somehow as he tells her, "Thank you."

 

 **1352**

Joanna's doing fine. Leah came down to do a spot-check on her and found her laughing and dancing, leading a handful of the other children under the watchful gaze of Yeoman Caspi, who's young and fresh enough for his amber eyes to shine as he watches the kids scamper. Leah glances at him, and the poor boy's shoulders relax a little, the corners of his long-lashed eyes creasing though his mouth stays flat.

Leah wishes it wouldn't be a lie to smile back, and turns to go.

As she strides through the corridors' familiar blanched glow, past crewmembers who glance at her just long enough to determine she's not someone to fear, she makes a mental note to have the general-purpose yeomen bring in the seven parentless children they more or less care for, hostages from assorted unfortunate Imperial vassals. If Leah doesn't make sure those children get regular examinations no one will, and it'll probably also give her a chance to scan the yeomen and apply regen and hyposprays as needed. The yeomen who don't belong to particular officers tend to end up either pretty bruised or exhausted from defending themselves, and most of them are hardly more than babies themselves.

Leah's musings on yeomen are interrupted by the Captain's Yeoman, Rand, who catches her attention by sliding down a bulkhead just as she turns the corner. "Rand!" Leah calls, hurrying over as her padd clatters to the floor, catching her arm as she starts to slide backwards and hauling her into a stable position. "Rand, can you hear me?" Rand nods silently, her eyes alert beneath drooping lids, her pupils reactively narrowing inside gray-blue irises, but her head lolls heavily and her skin's so thoroughly dappled with layered bruises that the heme breakdown products might be throwing off her blood chemistry. Leah palms her communicator and gets as far as, "McCoy to Sickbay. Send someone with a float stretcher to--" before Rand interrupts her by flopping a tapered hand in her general direction.

"Not necessary, McCoy," Rand breathes, "I just need to get back on my feet--"

"The Hell you do," Leah snaps, keeping hold of her shoulder just in case she decides to make a break for it, one eye on her hands if she gets tetchy and flicks out a blade. "Don't you even think of trying to run off, not that you'll get five meters from the looks of you. Dammit, Rand, I know there's some sense in that coiffed head of yours, so why didn't you come to Sickbay on your own?" She just looks down, shaking her head a little, and Leah grabs both her shoulders. "What's the matter, woman? You want acidosis? Maybe an abscess or kidney failure? Did _he_ give you these?" Leah can't imagine how even the voracious Kirk could've had time to batter Rand so thoroughly atop all the rest of the fun he's laid hold of recently, but who else would've dared lay a finger on her?

Rand shakes her head again, murmuring, "No."

"Well, then." Leah finishes calling it in and stays crouched beside Rand, one hand on the thick cloth and cool skin of her shoulder, the other braced against the wall. "We've got Medical for a reason, you know. It's apparently beyond the bounds of all expectation to think any damn one of you might take care of yourselves, but you could at least come down and let us fix the damage."

Rand bends her neck further until her bangs veil her face, as if hiding wet eyes, or possibly even a smile. Leah squeezes her shoulder very lightly and holds on until Nurse Temelae arrives with the float stretcher and helps Leah load her onto it. Rand _is_ conscious and responsive, so Leah walks rather than runs, which makes it easier to shout crewmembers out of the way. They get Rand into Sickbay and transferred to a biobed, and Leah turns towards a terminal as Temelae tweaks the bed's settings.

Then someone shouts behind her, overlain with the distinctive ionizing _zing_ of phaser fire.

Leah whirls, heart lurching, but nobody's on the floor. Smoke curls along the ceiling above Lieutenant Stilin, poised in the open Sickbay doorway; _where in God's big black space are Security_ , Leah thinks as she watches his antennae bristle and the phaser in his upraised hand swing down towards Chapel by Chitalen's biobed.

Leah's already away from the terminal screen, she has a heartbeat to act as the situation deteriorates before her eyes. She steps forward and Stilin's glare slides to her, but as he levels his phaser to cover her he thumbs it, flipping its deadly red glow to blue stun. Leah's other foot hits the floor and she's got herself between Chapel and Chitalen and Stilin's phaser, her empty hands up, his eyes on her, and hopefully someone out of his sightline has the damn-blasted sense to call Security.

She inhales slowly. Stilin's eyes flick back and forth. Chitalen huffs, the bed creaking as she moves. Thinking _stay down, girl_ , Leah lifts her hands a little higher and demands, "What the Hell do you think you're doing?"

Stilin flinches minutely, soft eyes widening in his hard turquoise face. That's what he needs, a dose of rough sense and maybe this can all resolve with no one hurt. "Stand aside, Doctor," he tries to command, but there's a quaver in his voice and a shine on his paling forehead. "I have no intention to shoot you."

"You're not shooting anyone in my Sickbay," she tells him, but that damn idiot Chitalen sits up all the way and Stilin's face hardens into a snarl.

Chitalen shouts something defiant in Andorian despite Leah's loud shushing noise, following it with, "You cowardly castrated _worm_ ," as Stilin grits his bared teeth and extends his phaser arm, "you think you'll settle this here?"

The diatribe cuts off on a muffled squeak and "Shut _up_ ," from Chapel, but Leah doesn't dare glance back while Stilin's still holding his phaser on them, his thumb wavering between the trigger and the kill-switch.

"I've got no damn idea what's going on here," Leah says from the bottom of her lungs, loudly as she can without shouting, "but you're not settling it in my Sickbay. Lieutenant, holster your weapon."

Stilin blinks, wavering, and Leah tries to keep her breathing even. After too many endless seconds he nods, tilting his phaser up away from them, pulling his arm in to holster it. Then there's an electric blue flash behind him and his shocked look fades into unconsciousness as he crumples to the floor.

Hikari Sulu stands behind him, holstering her phaser, flanked by two of her goons. Leah's chest unconstricts in a huge gasping whoop of air and she presses her hand to her heart, puffing, "Security Chief," much more earnestly than she'd like.

Sulu smiles regally, posture straight as a ruler until Leah steps towards Stilin; then she steps forward too, waving Leah off as her officers walk up to cuff Stilin's limp hands behind his back. "We've got it handled, Dr. McCoy," Sulu says as they grab Stilin's arms like handles and drag him away, literally, his legs trailing limply across the floor. Sulu salutes Leah with an ironic swing of her fist, scoops up Stilin's phaser, and turns to follow her goons and their prisoner, her long strides swishing the short red skirt as the Sickbay doors shut behind her.

"What the in blue blazes," Leah allows herself, slumping against the biobed. Beside her, Chapel blows out a long noisy sigh. Noting that Chitalen's O2 sat's slipped in all this excitement and that she's turned a muddy shade of mauve, Leah turns to scold her, "And what were you doing, riling him up and stressing yourself?" Chitalen grimaces, eyes closed, but her heart rate is settling out. "As long as you're in my Sickbay, Lieutenant, your goddamn job is to lie there and be quiet and get better, not tempt some crazy crewmember to undo all my work!"

Satisfied with Chitalen's limp acquiescence, Leah pushes herself off the biobed, waving Chapel ahead of her as M'Benga, who does actually have some sense, comes over from wherever he was tucked away. "Dr. McCoy--"

"Yeah, yeah." Leah nods, palming her office door open, every step heavier. "You've got Sickbay, Dr. M'Benga. Nurse Chapel and I are taking ten." Chapel slumps into the second chair, elbows on knees and forehead in her hands, and Leah drops into her desk chair and lets herself shake, reminding herself she's still on duty, that she can't pour them a drink.

 

 **1617**

Joanna has evidently had a much better day than her mother has, singing as she bounces around their quarters. Reminding herself that any day when no one dies just doesn't count as bad, Leah washes down a painkiller with a glass of water and flops over onto her bed, staring at the inside of her eyelids and listening to her daughter's piping burbles until the pound in her temples gradually fades away.

At the tentative, "Momma?" Leah opens her eyes.

Joanna stands in front of her looking diffident. "Hey, Jojo," Leah croaks, feeling much too exhausted to move.

She hauls her hand up and pats the bed beside her, and Joanna climbs on, all long limbs and big eyes, still alive and unharmed for another day. "After you left today, Nael asked what you did because he's only saw you once, and I told him you're the Chief Doctor."

"Seen, Joanna," Leah corrects absently, "and that's right, so what is it?"

"Well, Quinta called me a liar," Joanna continues, looking not so much angry as nervous. "She said you're the Captain's Woman, her daddy told her so."

Leah sighs. Every so often, when Joanna's understanding has gone up another stage in complexity, they have to have this conversation, and Leah hates trying to balance between preserving what she can of her daughter's childhood and lying as little as possible. "You're not a liar, Jojo, but Quinta's daddy's right too. Gossipy as all heck, but he's right, I am the Captain's Woman. That's why he takes special care of us. But I'm also the Chief Medical Officer, and my job on the ship is to keep everyone aboard from getting sick and to fix them up when they get hurt."

Joanna nods, and asks just like she did the last time, "Are you and Captain Jim in love?"

Last time, Leah lied and said yes. Now she doesn't know which answer would be the truth. "I'm not sure. But I want you to have someone who loves you, when you grow up. Don't ever settle for anything other than that." Joanna nods again, eyes huge. "And don't ask him this, all right? This is our talk we're having, just the two of us."

"All right, Momma. But... what does it mean that you're Captain Jim's Woman?" Joanna's light-voiced question makes Leah's skin crawl. "Were you Daddy's Woman before?"

Leah shuts her eyes, and does not yell at her daughter to stop asking probing questions. "Your Daddy and I were properly married, Joanna," she says instead, her voice rasping in her throat. "Before he died." Before Jake began abusing her, before she took Joanna and ran, before Kirk cut off his _head_ , but Leah's never telling her daughter those parts of the story if she can help it. "If the Captain were going to be married to someone, that person would be me. That's what it means."

Leah keeps her eyes shut, keeps herself breathing, even when Joanna, sharp as Jake was when they first met, ruthless as Kirk's teaching her by his example, asks, "Did Captain Jim kill Daddy, then?"

"Joanna!" Leah sits up on her elbows, so shocked she almost forgets to lie. "Where'd you get that idea?" she says, trying to sound as if it's anything but true.

"I thought maybe it was why you aren't married," Joanna explains with the same equanimity with which the adults on this ship threaten each other and plot mayhem together.

Leah wants to defend herself against the accusation she's plainly guilty of. She wants Joanna to never know any of the compromises she's made to protect her. She pulls herself up into her dignity and scolds, "That's rude, Joanna Marie. Why people get married or not is their business. I told you what concerns you, so don't pry for what doesn't."

Joanna shrugs. "Sorry, Momma," she says calmly, and Leah swallows over the leaden roil of hypocrisy in her belly as Joanna kisses her cheek. "So I can tell Quinta I'm not a liar?"

"Say, don't shout," Leah reminds her, a piece of actual parenting. "And I don't want to hear that you popped her in the nose."

"I promise," Joanna says with an impish smile; Leah watches her get up, healthy and happy and so beautiful it hurts, and can't do anything but smile back.

 

 **1850**

After Leah's taken a shower and put on a fresh uniform, after she's pinned up her bun again, kissed Joanna goodnight and left her reading in bed, when the door slides shut behind her Leah turns around and taps in the code to lock her quarters. Now besides her only Chapel or the Captain can get in, or so she's been assured; but then, although he's taken a great deal of entertainment from Leah's efforts to protect her daughter, Kirk does seem invested in helping her do so, at least so far.

Leah takes a breath and pushes that line of thought away, but what drifts in to replace it is the haunting memory of her lunchtime chat with M'Benga, the story of the unnamed young man he'll never see again. What comes to her mind are her increasingly frequent thoughts that Joanna needs to be somewhere else before Kirk's particular mercy wears thin, the knowledge that wherever that is will be somewhere Leah can't be.

So she puts off dinner and all her swirling thoughts a little longer by taking one more swing through Sickbay. On the way she passes Giotto, leaning against the bulkhead as if he thinks anyone could miss two-meters-plus of bulky blockheaded Security XO. From the corner of her eye she watches his eyes follow her, and keeps herself from speeding up or otherwise showing she took any notice of him. She doubts he's there on the Captain's business; Kirk has better ways of keeping tabs on her.

Sickbay is relatively peaceful, a proper contingent of guards flanking the door, M'Benga at the duty desk. They exchange nods, and Leah flicks through the biobed readouts and gives Orri'ah, Rand and Chitalen visual once-overs. When she heads for her office, Chapel slips in a step behind her, so Leah locks the door and looks Chapel over as well. Arms wrapped around herself, she's wearing a female uniform, nurse-white rather than Science blue and all too skimpy on her tall frame. She looks chilled and underdressed even before she holds out her arm, never once looking directly at Leah.

Chapel's wrist is ringed with bruises from strong fingers, fresh red marks branding pale skin. "Broken?" Leah asks in a sigh. Chapel shakes her head, and Leah pulls a regenerator from her desk drawer, automatically scanning it against its template in her tricorder before she switches it on. "Any others?"

Chapel shakes her head again. "When I told Scott I wasn't seeing him tonight, I thought I was out of arm's reach. Had to pull a blade to get away." She smiles wryly, still looking down.

Leah's laugh is soft and bitter. She's misjudged a man's reach herself, once or twice. "He knows better than to break into my quarters, and Joanna always loves a sleepover."

Chapel finally meets Leah's eyes, her smile fading and her tight eyebrows easing. "Thanks, but I think I'll be all right. At least, Giotto had better be worth betting on."

Leah hoists an eyebrow at this revealed shenanigan. "Try not to start something we can't handle, Helen of Troy," she says, and Chapel's cheek dimples. "I'm serious, woman. I need my head nurse in one piece, and the Captain won't thank you if someone useful winds up dead."

Chapel looks down at her hand, lax and half-curled in Leah's hold. "I know. I think I can manage not to provoke a direct fight. I just..." Leah shuts off the regenerator, and Chapel shuts her eyes, cradling her freshly healed wrist in her other hand. "I'm tired of this," she almost whispers, and Leah goes cold at the impending confession. Why today, why her? She's a doctor, not some kind of counselor. But she listens, and Chapel continues. "I'm so tired. Ever since I found Roger, I've been thinking ... I got what I deserved for looking for him, for joining the 'Fleet in the first place."

Leah gasps, loud in her quiet little office, but Chapel doesn't react or move. This must be the first time Chapel's mentioned her ill-fated fiance Professor Korby since the _Enterprise_ happened upon his little android factory, since he sent one of his walking dolls to impersonate Kirk and got all his work destroyed along with himself for the trouble. Leah feels a little guilty for not regretting Korby's death, but she still remembers the mess he caused, the sheer scientific waste when Kirk torpedoed his android base, the hard textured floor beneath her knees when she begged Kirk for Chapel's life. She still remembers the only time she's seen Chapel cry, and thinks angry thoughts in the lightless depths of her heart about the men that women can't be rid of even after they're dead.

Dead or alive, she silently amends, thinking both she and Chapel could really use a hug. Instead she asks lightly, as if they weren't inside a warship brimming with brutality, as if either of their lives were their own, "Where else would you go?"

Chapel's shoulder jerks in a brittle shrug, but she eases her arms from clutching herself to simply folded and looks at Leah again. "I have no idea," she says with another shrug, dismissing the whole conversation, straightening her back and holding her head high.

Leah knows too well how hollow that stance feels. She reaches out to open the door and says, "Have a good evening, Chapel," though the words taste like ash.

"You too, McCoy," Chapel says, her sardonic tone matching Leah's grim expectation, and they head out.

 

 **2014**

Dinner dishes are strewn across the folding table, the lights dimmed to a level that's supposed to be romantic but just causes eyestrain, and Leah sits in her chair, rolling the lingering taste of chocolate on her tongue as she watches Kirk. He, meanwhile, stares through his vertigo-inducing viewport at the streaked blackness of space at Warp, shoulders squared and arms folded, shadows outlining curves of dense muscle. Until a few moments ago he was pacing as if he wished he had a tail to lash, impatient enough to make her worry, the tension strangling her appetite, and when his comm chimed with a message she carefully held still as she watched him read it.

Besides, considering the menus Kirk always sets when he has Leah to dinner, full of temptations and low on fiber, she's probably had enough food. The last piece of cake sits mournfully untouched, but when Kirk whirls around Leah flinches, barely managing to keep from showing it, her belly clenching around what little she's eaten.

He's smiling at least, bright in the dim room and sunny like an excited boy, and when he crooks his forefinger Leah gets up before she remembers to be resentful. "Now, this is a secret, Bones," he tells her, and grins when she rolls her eyes, "but our next mission's finally something besides shopping trips and toting dignitaries around."

"Oh, good," Leah answers, folding her arms, "because I for one am just so tired of peaceful diplomacy and relative quiet."

Kirk's eyes sparkle at her sarcasm. "Astrometrics just confirmed that one of the open clusters I had them look at has a pretty high chance of dilithium-bearing inner planets. None of the systems are marked as claimed on the maps or buoy charts, so we're going to go fix that." He gestures expansively towards the seeming hole in the wall and the stars outside it, his blue eyes absolutely shining. Something inside Leah sways towards him, warming with his excitement until he says, "And the best part is, at least two of the planets are probably civilized!" Of course. "Future loyal subjects for the Empire," he concludes, his grin widening to sharklike.

Leah's blood runs cold. "Oh, hooray, warfare and carnage!" She takes a step back. "Then I've got a Sickbay to prepare--"

Kirk takes two forwards, catching her wrist, his glee unflagging. "Remember, it's a secret. You'll brief your staff when I tell you to, not before, and you won't lay in extra supplies or make any moves that might tip off inquiring minds. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Captain," Leah sullenly agrees, tugging her trapped hand. Kirk doesn't let go, but he doesn't tighten his grip past mild restraint, either. "Can I at least ask for an ETA?"

"You can ask me anything, baby." Kirk leers, because he's himself. "Three days, maybe a little longer." He tugs her wrist, lightly for him, and she didn't really think she would get two nights off, so she steps in close enough for him to wrap his other arm around her, close enough to rest her forehead against the smooth skin below his collarbones.

Three days before the next time the officers and crew of the _Enterprise_ fling their heavily-armed selves off-ship and come back mangled for her and her staff to put back together. Tonight Kirk's in an expansive mood, his cheer surrounding them like a warm bubble. Leah takes a breath, her eyes closed against the dip of his vest and the muscled planes of his chest, and asks, "Captain?"

"Oooh, 'Captain' twice in a row! You must want something, Bones." Leah's cheeks burn because he's right, and she grits her teeth, trying to force out her request instead of a snarl. "Let me guess. I've already confirmed Rand's medical leave; I had no idea those Theeminite ambassadors had it in their lazy little selves to be so rough on a girl." He sounds just a shade off sincerely surprised, and Leah can just picture the lifted eyebrows and wide-eyed innocence she'd see if she raised her head. "Is it that idiot Stilin who shot up Sickbay? I won't kill him, I promise. Won't even lop off an antenna. If I did in every hothead who tried to settle their love affairs with a phaser I'd have to run half the ship myself! But you can't have this one when he gets out of the Booth. Send a nurse by his quarters to check on him if you want."

Leah's halfway through a nod when Kirk's, "That reminds me," freezes her, a lump of ice congealing in her gut even before his grip tightens on her wrist hard enough to mash new bruises atop old. "Who told you to throw yourself in front of his phaser?"

"I wasn't letting him shoot my patient," Leah replies into Kirk's chest, her voice trembling more than she wants, but her wrist throbs inside the manacle of his fingers and she won't beg him, not for herself, she won't. "Or anyone else."

"Oh, Bones." Kirk sweeps his hand down her arm and catches her other wrist; a little relieved gasp escapes her as he eases up on the pressure, settling her hands palm to palm between his. "What do I have to do to teach you not to risk my favorite doctor? How about if we try something kinda weird. You tell me what you want, and I'll let you have it if you promise to behave."

Leah looks up at Kirk's indulgent smirk, and hauls in a breath all the way to the bottom of her lungs. "Anything I want."

Kirk rolls his eyes ceilingward as if considering. " _Almost_ anything," he drawls, and grins blindingly. "Try me and find out."

Leah swallows, her throat tightening. Maybe she should ask for something less risky... but sometimes she just knows what to prescribe or where to cut, and she knows this is her chance. "Captain Kirk, I want Joanna to go back to Earth for school."

It's Kirk's turn to freeze, his eyes narrowing to glints, little creases bookending his drawn-down eyebrows as his full mouth tightens. "And where do you plan to be, Dr. McCoy?" he asks, and Leah shivers, cold with fear over a little flare of heat undampened by dully familiar self-revulsion.

She swallows hard, rivulets of pain crackling down her nerves under Kirk's tightening fingers, and gasps, "Here, of course." Kirk's eyes lighten a fraction, his grip easing, and she tugs her hands free, hissing as she cups her bruised wrist. "Ow. This ship needs a CMO and she needs her damn hands intact."

"Oh, let me see that." Kirk's smile unfurls, narrower than before, and Leah's belly wobbles with uncertainty as she holds her hand out. He curves his fingers delicately beneath her wrist, lifting it to brush his lips over her pulse like he did this morning. "There, all better."

"You have a medical degree I don't know about, Sir?" Leah asks, flexing it. It aches, but not as if anything's broken. Kirk just grins again, like always.

Then he grabs her up, hands clamped round her upper arms, shocking a gasp out of her as he swings her up against the viewport. "No, I just know how to take people apart," he says, pushing her into the wall with his chest, reaching between them to undo her sash. "I've got you to put them back together."

 _Here?_ she thinks, trying not to glance across at the bed, which is at least _soft_ and _warm_ and otherwise comfortable. "I'm here to do that," she tells him, trying to breathe against his crush, trying keep herself from falling by looping her arms behind his neck and hooking her thighs around his waist, "but Joanna doesn't need to be here too," and she focuses on the manic gleam in his eyes, his broad hand at her hip, trying not to think about sending her daughter away, trying not to foresee that emptiness.

Kirk can certainly give her enough to think about with one maddening shrug as he unfastens her trousers. "I'll consider it," he says negligently. "Come on."

Struggling to hold herself up, Leah ducks his kiss. It's risky, but even Kirk has only two hands. "But this is--!" _Important_ fades on her lips as Kirk's eyes flare, and Leah redirects, "How am I supposed to think about anything else?"

Damn it all, he takes it as a dare. "Oh, I bet I can make you," Kirk replies, pressing harder, crushing her between his warm hardness and the cool wall as he grabs her hair and kisses her. Leah 'mmphs' annoyance but Kirk tilts his head, kissing her with soft fervency, cupping her face in his hands until she starts to melt, until she almost doesn't care that she can't breathe. He kisses her until her skin prickles against her uniform and her trousers sliding down her hips feels like shedding a snakeskin.

It takes just about everything, digging down deep, for Leah to keep herself from moaning until Kirk lets her mouth go, to hold back as he kisses along her jaw to her ear, to make herself say as he pushes her knees up and hauls her trousers down over them, "This bulkhead's cold, isn't there a bed in here?"

"A nice big soft one," Kirk rumbles, teeth and tongue against her ear as he tugs her thighs back up around his waist, branding her ass with his long-fingered grip as he pries his trousers open one-handed. "But here I can look at my girl and the stars." Before Leah can think of any answer to that, he nudges her nose with his, her hair sliding across the polished transluminum viewport as he kisses her hungrily until she forgets, even if just briefly, why she tries.

 **2322**

"I have to admit, Bones, you do have a point," Kirk murmurs conversationally into Leah's hair, tucked firm and warm along her back, his hard arm draped loosely over her belly.

Her first muzzy thought is that she was damn near asleep, and he's woken her up to the smouldering strain deep inside her biceps and triceps from holding herself up, the lingering aches in her wrist and her throat. She blinks and dizzily remembers how a panicky corner of her brain kept shrieking that he was pushing her over emptiness with each thrust and how that made her clutch him all the tighter, how she gripped his hot damp skin with her palms and thighs as he bounced her between the hard wall and his hard body, how she whimpered and shuddered and swore as he laughed into her mouth. For a moment Leah just grumbles wordlessly, shifting away from Kirk onto her belly, sinking her face into the pillow as she chases sleep.

Then she remembers what he's on about, what they were discussing, and rolls all the way over as she wakes up, tipping her face back up as she mumbles, "Kirk?"

"Yes, honey?" Leah huffs at that, rubbing her eyes as she rolls them, and both lets and makes Kirk wrap his arm around her waist and bodily tug her towards him until her breasts brush his chest. "So, Jojo's getting to be a big girl, isn't she."

"Bigger and smarter every day." Leah looks up into Kirk's eyes, sleepy twilight blue in the low light but sharp as ever. "She's running out of distance lessons, and I think she could use some structure and classes."

"And good influences," Kirk says with a little squeeze and a smarmy grin.

Leah tucks her arm between their bodies like the flimsiest of shields, making herself inhale and exhale before she answers. "I think she's outgrowing this environment," she says in her most professional voice, hoping he'll hear her, expecting him to laugh.

He does as he kisses her forehead, his mouth vibrating with chuckles. "But, Bones, the whole ship loves your little girl."

"And that helps?" Leah pushes up on her elbow, energized by irate memory. "She's asking me about who's sleeping together, she's getting into fights --" She _doesn't_ bring up the uniform this morning, instead continuing with, "The other day I caught Sulu teaching her how to clean a dagger!"

Kirk rolls his shoulder in a muscular shrug, sliding his hand up Leah's ribs. "She's some lessons ahead on any Imperial Academy prep curriculum."

"She's not going to a pre-Fleet program," Leah sits up. "I want her safe. The Imperial Fleet's not safe, bottom to top, anywhere."

"Oh, I don't know." Kirk tilts his head as he looks at her, and she folds her arms under his heavy gaze. "What makes you think you get to decide?"

Leah knew he'd try that. She digs her nails into her arm to make herself say instead of shout, "She's my daughter."

"And my ward." Kirk nestles his hand over her hip as if he can intimidate her by feeling her up, but it's not like he hasn't had his hands all over her a thousand times before. "Along with you."

"You're not -- " Looking down into his amused face, Leah can't make herself say 'you won't kill her,' that old bluff she never dared call. "You don't want to break her." Belatedly, she hears her voice thickening, but backing down now is as good as consigning Joanna to the inevitable disaster. "So you might as well send her somewhere that'll actually be good for her."

"I don't know, Bones, Jojo doesn't need the gentle treatment you do." Kirk drags the words out, lazily groping up her side, sliding his hand over her folded arms. "The other day when she socked Tanvir -- oh, you should've seen her proud little face." He tweaks Leah's nipple, and she grits her teeth, reminding herself not to swat at his impertinent hand. "I think my ship's providing her an excellent education."

"I want my daughter off this debauched rattletrap before she gets any closer to grown!" Leah presses her hand to her mouth, but the words are out, and when Kirk surges up she flinches, thinking every curse she knows at once. If she's spoiled Joanna's chances --

Kirk strokes his knuckles lightly over her cheek, a strange intensity in his night-dark eyes. "I can't have my girls insulting each other," he says softly, and Leah nods, trying not to tremble, wondering if he'll slap her. He doesn't, but he cups her jaw, pinching her chin to hold her where he wants her. "Jellico Academy," he orders. "When she's fourteen she can apply to the Imperial Academy or to a civilian program, anywhere she likes." He pets Leah's throat so delicately, settling the tip of his forefinger in her suprasternal notch. "As long as you take better care of my favorite doctor, I'll take care of your daughter. Is it a deal, McCoy?"

Jellico Academy is so high on her mental list Leah wonders if Kirk hacked her search logs. She nods, and his mouth downcurves in a tiny little terrifying scowl, his fingers bracketing her throat. "Yes, Captain," Leah whispers, taking the hint.

Kirk smiles again, pushing gently on her chest, settling his arm back across her waist. "Then let's grab a nap. I don't know about you, Bones, but you wore me out!"

Leah rolls her eyes at him, his laughter echoing in her ears as she pushes her eyelids shut and makes herself breathe.

 

 **0458**

As she sometimes does, Leah dreams about her father, smoky mists blowing between them as he reaches out to her, the wind stealing his voice as he tries to tell her something. All she can see are the wide eyes she inherited from him, his mouth moving soundlessly as he fades into darkness and the streaming wind rips away her air; she can't breathe and her aching ribs wake her up, bound by Kirk's constricting arm. She gulps a breath and wriggles carefully, shifting up the bed until his tight hold settles around her waist rather than her lungs, while he presses his face against her shoulder and slings a leg across her thighs as if to keep her from escaping him.

Once she can actually breathe Leah gives in and lies still again, and Kirk settles back down as well. She blinks in the dimness, no light but warp-flickering starshine, and feels Kirk clutching her as he sleeps. Deep into one long dark night, while he was drunk and dozing, his arm hard and hot clamped around her waist, he murmured in Leah's ear that he loved sleeping beside her, that she was safe and warm.

She's never forgotten that admission. Kirk fucks half the ship, but she's the only one he sleeps with, because he trusts her.

Leah exhales into the darkness, feeling the rhythmic push against her side as Kirk's chest rides and falls. A sudden thought flickers behind her eyes: Kirk trusts her. He thinks she won't hurt him. She's inside his guard. She could kill him.

She dismisses it just as quickly; if she wants to die there are much less painful ways than the public execution Spock would give her in reward for that unwanted promotion. Besides, Kirk gave her Joanna's life back, and now he's promised to set her daughter free. The air above Leah's face is full of his warm musk, and she's... gotten used to him, she thinks, turning her head to look at the tousled tips of his hair, pale in the scanty starlight.

He has the ruffled hair and the sweet smile of a boy, and last week he destroyed a peaceful vessel that refused to submit to a capricious search. At his direction, in a handful of days the _Enterprise_ will drop out of some planet's sky and turn its people's lives upside down. Leah shuts her eyes against the darkness, against what she helps Kirk and his crew do by keeping them hale and whole, against everything she's done for her daughter, or so she knows she tells herself.

She thinks of her father, she thinks her chest is tightening with tears of shame, until she gasps under Kirk's steely arm and he smiles against her shoulder. "Morning, Bones," he murmurs over her skin.

"Good morning, Captain," Leah mutters back, trying to sound thick and groggy. "My shift's not till 1000 hours, should I return to my quarters?"

"Lights, 25%," he replies, rearing up over her, catching her wrist when she tries to cover her face. She groans, about to curse, and he kisses her, his lips chapped silky-rough, his mouth sleep-sour. He cages her with his sinewy body, sliding his other hand broad and warm down her ribs, throwing every square millimeter of her skin into high sensory relief.

"Oh, you can't be serious," Leah argues as he presses down hard against her hip, his toothy grin unfurling above her nose, his eyes translucent and glinting in the low light. "It's too damn early and I'm going back to sleep."

"Yeah, you've been looking tired lately." Kirk pins her wrist to the mattress, shifting to press his knee up between her thighs until she squirms. "That's why I gave you that night off." She dares to push her free hand against his chest, but he cups her breast, thumbing her nipple, and the answering quiver undermines her strength. "Now rise and shine, Bones, I've got a long full day ahead and I want a happy start to it."

"Let me roll over, then, and we can both have what we want, because I'm done for awhile yet." It's pointless, Leah knows, she can already feel traitorous currents of heat rising within her, but she pushes until Kirk pries his hand off her breast to pin both her wrists. All she accomplishes by writhing is grinding down against his hard thigh, sensation surging hot up her nerves; his eyes gleam as he pushes her hands together over her head, his teeth shine sharp as he crosses her wrists to pin them firmly in one grip. All she can do is gasp and strain and squeeze her eyes shut, the universe collapsing to the bed beneath her and the demanding man above her.

"C'mon, Bones," Kirk says as he slides his freed hand down her trembling belly and wedges her thighs apart with his, as her breathing shudders faster and she feels him watch her shake, "we both know better than that."

 **0605**

When Leah's internal timer tells her she can't put it off any longer, she turns off Kirk's shower and hauls herself out. He spent a long time working her up, avidly watching her squirm and scream before he got on with his own pleasure, and she aches all over, everywhere he bit her and everywhere he kissed, every throb flaring with each step. As she drags it on her uniform rubs coarsely against her sore skin, and she just plain feels worked over.

Like usual, not that she'll ever get used to it.

She closes her eyes and puts her hair back up by sense memory, not looking at herself in the mirror, then sets one foot before the other until she's back inside the bedroom. Kirk smiles up at her from his bed, the sheets pooled around his naked hips as he lounges against the pillows, absently fiddling with the regenerator they keep in his quarters. He holds it out to her like a king extending a scepter; she bites her lip on what she'd like to say, takes it and sits down beside him to heal up the itchy bite behind her ear, then the still-stinging one on her neck. The whole time she listens to the little wet sounds and satisfied hums as he licks his fingers, his gaze heavy and unwavering, insufferable pleasure radiating off him in tangible waves.

Once her neck's done, Leah considers the regen in her hand. To heal anywhere else she'd have to undress again, and she doesn't want to give Kirk the chance to forbid her. Muttering, "Thank you, Captain," she pushes herself up, and he doesn't stop her as she pulls on her boots and limps away

Leah has wobbled almost as far as the door when Kirk's quiet, "Bones," sticks her feet to the floor. She stares at the brushed titanium, wanting to reach out and press her palm to it for support, wanting to lie down on either side of it; the back of her neck prickles as she hears him stand up, as she listens to each soft bare-soled footfall. She shivers in front of his door as he walks up behind her, slowly enough to make her twitch, and presses every inflexible inch of his front against her back.

With deadly softness Kirk slides his hand around Leah's waist, nosing her hair, musky and redolent of sex; tension twangs down her ruler-straight spine, but her mouth waters. "Come here," he murmurs into her hair, tilting up her chin with two fingers, and though her guts squirm and she aches under her clothes she obediently tips her head back and does kiss him. "Enjoyed yourself?" he asks her, something like tenderly, fingers curved to her cheek.

She answers, soft against his lips, "Go fuck yourself and let me leave, Sir," as if he hasn't just fucked her with excruciatingly thoroughness, as if he couldn't immerse her in agony on a whim.

He laughs against her mouth, because he did, and squeezes a handful of her ass as he pushes her forwards. "Go on, give Joanna my love," he chortles as the door opens, and she staggers out without glancing back at him grinning and naked behind her.

The trudge back to her quarters is blurry with exhaustion, and when she fetches up against her door Leah leans on it and considers going to sleep right there in the corridor, but that would probably be a bad idea. Instead she keeps herself blinking and awake a few moments more, long enough for a yeoman to arrive looking about as wobbly as she feels and carrying a covered tray.

"Thanks, kid," Leah manages to murmur with disgraceful informality as she takes the tray, and the girl tosses her a sloppy salute and staggers away. Leah palms the door open, carries the tray inside, and sets it down beside her as she drops onto her bed.

"Momma?" Joanna calls drowsily.

"Morning, Jojo, got a treat for you after you wash up." The bed feels ridiculously soft and warm beneath her, but passing out right now would be procrastination. After Kirk promised her what she asked for, and entered it in the Ship's Log as she watched, after she commed Chapel out of a sound sleep and watched her weary face brighten at the offer, Leah needs to make herself do this before she never does.

Still, her eyes prickle when Joanna bounces into the room, when her daughter lifts up the tray's cover, inhales the sweet toasty smell, and grins in delight as she shouts, "Muffins!" Leah presses her hand to her mouth to hold the tears back, but some ragged edge to her breath betrays her; Joanna looks up, a half-eaten muffin in her hand, wide eyes suddenly sharpening with realization.

Leah's throat tightens as she reaches out for Joanna's other hand, cradling its delicate length between hers, but her voice only wobbles a little when she begins, "Baby, I need to tell you something."


End file.
